Big Day

Well folks here we are. Sorry for the lack of updates lately, we have all been completely slammed trying to finish of Atius. Despite being very tired, and quite frankly more than a little burnt out I am proud to announce that Project Atius is now live! You can find it at out website for the project where it is free to download for the cost of no money.  Thanks for sticking with us through this long process, me and the whole rest of the team really hope you enjoy Project Atius.

You can get it right here: http://robertpierre91.wix.com/projectatius

Cheers,

Robert

Beta Interview

I’ve been doing so many of these interview lately that I’m starting to feel like a real reporter. Anyways, as promised here is the double feature interview with Andy and Aaron:

So guys, it’s been a little while since we did one of these. Let’s start with what you guys have been working on.

AW – Lately we’ve been fixing up Wisdom.  We’ve been working on tweaking the moving platforms and her collision detection and AI.  Our biggest challenge has been having Wisdom not lift a platform that she’s on while moving.  Since she doesn’t have aerial control, she would fly through the air and out of the arena.  Ironically, rather than directly fixing the problem, adding a new mechanic accidentally fixed Wisdom.

AD – Part of the challenge came from us using different programming tools and combining them to make the boss fight work. Andy uses Playmaker and occasionally some C# while I use C# and getting the two to work together has been challenging but it’s great because it means that we both have to constantly communicate and know exactly what the other is doing in terms of programming. So through Playmaker Andy has been scripting what attacks wisdom will use and how they will work, and in C# we have been scripting how the pillars will rise and fall.

Cool, now Andy you mentioned today that you “Accidentally fixed Wisdom”. What exactly does that mean and Aaron how did you help with it? I mean I know you’re not a real programmer but I figure you might have got like coffee or something?

AW- Woah. I’m way more of a programmer than Aaron (inside joke – no ego here)!!  Well, I added the mechanic of when Wisdom steps on a new platform, it moves down, consequently, it won’t move up – problem of Wisdom being launched.  Issue fixed.  Stopping the platform from moving was being a pain, we would have gotten it eventually, but this fixed the problem so we rolled with it.

AD – I tried solving the issue by scripting it in C# but it was causing the pillars to do a weird flicker. Our fallback was to put invisible barriers around the arena so that if wisdom did going flying she wouldn’t fall off, but what ended up fixing it worked much better.

Neat. So why not give all the people here the overview of the fight and the programming that went into it.

AW – Okay so from the beginning, Wisdom was fast – extremely difficult to hit and defeat while she had the entire space to dart around.  This led to the core mechanic of the boss fight: destroying the pillars.  Destroying the pillars will create holes in the arena that block Wisdom’s movement and hinders her greatest strength.  However, the player can’t jump over them either so they must strategically destroy them in attempt to trap Wisdom and not impede the player’s mobility since Wisdom’s attacks are pretty quick too.  The catch, the platforms are only vulnerable while Wisdom is attacking.

AD – The biggest challenge programming-wise was making sure that the A.I. functioned properly with everything else that’s going on in the arena.

Right. So do you guys have anything in particular you wanted to say about the project over-all? The floor is yours.

AW – I wish we had a real programmer (another joke)

AD – I wish playmaker didn’t break everything (rebuttal (but joking))

So last question. Which of you is the best programmer. Ready? FIGHT!

AW – Me.

AD – Nope, not Andy

So here we find ourselves folks. Deep in the middle of beta and steaming along to a good ending. Next post I’m actually going give you full run-through of the in-progress level complete with voice over by yours truly. Be sure to come back for that and thanks for stopping by.

Cheers,

Robert

Project Atius Set Dressing Special

Today is all about the lovely set dressing out set dresser Hayley has done over the course of the past week or so. Keep in mind that this stuff is still very much in progress but I thought it looked cool enough to show off.

First off here is the whole entire level from above. Obviously all these shots are going to be in engine but I still think this gives a good indication of the scope of the level.

Next up is just going to be a bunch of screen shots of various parts of the level we thought looked really cool.

So there you have it, a pretty good look at how the set dressing is coming along. Be sure to come back for the next post because it’s going to be a big one with a full walk through of the level and a voice over. As always thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Robert

 

Project Atius Quick Update 4

It’s time again for a quick sneak peak into the making of Project Atius. We just hit beta yesterday which is a pretty big deal and we are all super excited about it. In honor of this I’m going to do a double feature interview with andy and Aaron about how they finally managed to fix Wisdom. Today however, is not that day. Today is concept art day so lets look at some arts.

First off we have the updated throne concepts.  I have it on good authority that the actual model for this is coming along swimmingly.

Next are some refinements of details from the initial concept pieces. These will be passed onto our modeling team to be remade in glorious 3D.

Here are some other refinements for small detail stuff to go in the cave. I like the chompy rock myself

Lastly we have some untextured pillars to the scattered around the level.

 

So that’s all that I have for this update. Next post should be that double interview I mentioned at the start of the post so stay tuned for that. Oh and we got some stuff to incentives us to do our daily scrums. Here is the one we had yesterday, it’s cheering everyone up to add a little fun to the scrums.

So there you have it, see you guys in a few days and as always thanks for stopping by.

Cheers,

Robert

 

Project Atius Update #9 Interview with Debora Paul and Lynette Wu.

Hello and welcome. Today I have a special double interview for you guys. I’m going to be talking to two of our modelers, Debora Paul and Lynette Wu. Obviously the visual styling is a lot of what makes Project Atius so compelling so let’s get underway.

 So, what are some of the major assets you’ve been asked to create for Project Atius?

LW: I’ve been working mainly on environment assets like the pillar platforms in the final boss fight, the weapon and more trees and pillars. I’ve also started working on the meditation throne for Wisdom.

DP: I’ve mostly been working on the character up to this point, but I’m moving on to environment assets now which is a nice change of pace.

Cool, so Debora you modeled the main character right? Where there any particular difficulties in that?

DP: Yes, I did work on Atira. There weren’t many major difficulties. Just numerous small things like deadline changes caused by the animator conundrum and the small confusion about Atira’s midriff. Mariel set me right though. I originally modeled her with an exposed midriff, but the sweater was supposed to be continued. In hind sight that made more sense. Where would all those layers she’s wearing go? It was interesting to see how wrong my mind can be especially when I’m looking at the concept for so long.

I’ll take your word for it, I know nothing about modeling. So Lynette, you are currently working on Wisdom’s meditation throne thing. How’s that coming along?

LW: Its coming along fine, as this is somewhat a hero asset and does not need to be animated, I’d have not as strict a polygon count limit to adhere to and that would help greatly in making sure the asset in the game looks close to the concept and the sculpt I created in zbrush. Sana did a really nice concept for it and hopefully my final model would do it justice.

 

Last question. How do you guys feel about the overall artistic direction of Project Atius?

 

LW: The art direction is actually the main reason that drew me to the project in the first place, the stylized forms, colors work really well for the setting of the game. Our concept artists did a really good job in creating cohesive designs for the environments and characters. Also having Mariel painting most of the textures further unifies the look of the game. Also I could recognize influences from Thomas Scholes who is one of my favorite environment concept artists.

DP: Mariel’s concepts were the hook for me too. I love all references to nature to create the fantasy realm. The real world is weird already and I love using unique parts of natural world in my works as well. That and the lines there are some really sexy lines in the concepts.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with me guys, I really appreciate it. Stay tuned for more updates and as always thanks for paying us a visit.

Cheers,

Robert

Project Atius Update #8 Interview with Aaron Dintino

Welcome back to Project Atius, today we are going to be talking with one of our programmers on the project Aaron Dintino. Aaron is programming the lion’s share of the mechanics in the game, so I’m sure he’ll have a lot to say.

Just to start off, how long have you been working in unity?

I’ve been working in Unity for about two and a half months at this point.

Right so let’s get some basics down. What are a few of the mechanics you’ve implemented in the game, and how do they affect the player’s experience?

The dodge roll mechanic was one of the first mechanics implemented into the game. It gives the player more mobility which is useful against many of the boss’ quick attacks. Another main mechanic is the player’s fireball attack which allows the player to attack from afar while moving to avoid enemy attacks. The purpose of the player mechanics are to allow the player to deal out damage to the boss while avoiding taking damage.

Let’s talk some more about the player character, where there any specific problems you ran into while trying to get it to function?

Being fairly new to programming, there were times when I had to implement something and I had no idea how to script it. For example, getting the player camera to function properly proved challenging since we needed a camera that the player could zoom in and out, and also avoid going through walls. I had to learn programming concepts that were new to me like raycasting and vector math.

If I remember properly you were having some trouble with the dodge roll. How’d you get around that snag?

Thankfully Unity’s online community has been really helpful and there is usually a solution or explanation for any issues I’ve run into. Looking at online tutorials and watching how other programmers implement certain mechanics has taught me a lot about how the scripting language works. For the dodge roll specifically, I first asked myself what did I wanted that player character to do exactly and what did I need to learn in order to be able to create that effect. I knew that for the dodge roll, the player would need to move from point A to point B over a certain amount of time at a certain speed. My main issue I kept running into was that the player would move to point B, but it wouldn’t be over time, instead it happened instantaneously. So what happened was that when the player dodge rolled, they would appear in the new location immediately. After some researching online, I was able to find what the issue was and fix it.

Lastly I’ll just give the floor over to you. Got anything to say about your work or how it is to work on Project Atius?

Atius has been a great experience for me in many ways. Because of the amount of time I’ve spent working on the game these past five weeks, I’ve learned a lot about programming in such a short amount of time. And being primarily a level designer, I know that these new skills will allow me to be more flexible in what I can do when working on projects in the future. It’s also been a blast working with a group of talented people and seeing it all come together is a very rewarding experience.

Well thanks for your time Aaron, I really appreciate it. Stay tuned folks, Next I’m going to try to talk to one of our concept artists to get a good look at the formative stages of the project.

Cheers,

Robert

Project Atius Quick Update 3

It’s that time again to take a quick look at what we have been up to. We have a lot of great stuff this time around so lets get started.

First up is a big one, the updated open screen art. We had to update the blade color and tweak a few things to fit the established look of the blade in the concept.

Next we have this goopy fossilized coral piece that will be used in set dressing. While it is a work in progress I still think it looks cool.

Here we have some great architectural elements with trees made of zsphere wrapped around them.

And here are the finished trees, untextured of course, that will be wrapped around the pillars in the previous picture,

Lastly we have some great in progress crystal pieces which are also going to be used for set dressing.

That’s it for this quick update. As always thanks for coming to look at our stuff, we really appreciate it. Coming up next is the interview with one of our programmers, Aaron Dintino. Be sure to come back for that to get some insight into the inner working of Project Atius.

Cheers,

Robert

Project Atius Update #7 Interview with Andy Wegener

So, I know that this project has been in the works before I joined the team. How long have you been working on it and how did this all get started.

I started this game over summer break of 2013. I knew my time in school was almost done and I wanted to make a game that I couldn’t say no to if I saw it in the store or on Steam. The game’s idea has changed drastically from a clone of Pokemon to a combat racer like Mario Kart. Then Steam’s Summer Sale came on and I saw one of my all-time favorites – Final Fantasy VII. In the last couple weeks of summer, playing Final Fantasy VII inspired and motivated me to build a working menu-style RPG before I went back to school. Once Art Director Mariel Thompson joined, she offered some great suggestions to give it more action and the game quickly evolved to what it is now.

What was your first vision for how the level should play out?

From the get go, I knew that the dungeon should be a tutorial stage, but not FEEL like one.   I’ve read several articles and watched many videos for research and each one has drilled this concept into my thick, stubborn head. The dungeon’s purpose was to serve as a learning tool and teach the player each mechanic one at a time. After using these mechanics, the player would have to quickly learn them in order to defeat Wisdom at the end.

Let’s talk about scope, did you have to cut anything to make it fit within the constraints or did you get it about right the first time?

We have had to change a lot. This has been a very difficult learning experience for me as a designer.  Except for the last month or so, everything I had made for this game has been cut (about 5-6 months of work, roughly). Although it really stinks, I’ve learned how to do much more than I ever would have. Originally, once we settled on the action game, we thought a starting area, 3 mini bosses with their own preceding dungeon, and a final boss was a reasonable scope. Unfortunately, we’ve had to cut it down to one miniboss and a dungeon.

Were there any major hold ups when it came to getting this started?

Definitely. First, I had a bad case of the good ol’ creative block. I couldn’t generate any ideas and not even Pokemon inspired me. I started playing around with some clone ideas, but I never really got started on any of them – until Final Fantasy VII. Once that got going, finding a team was a challenge. No – finding a team with TIME was a challenge.  It wasn’t until we got approved for a class project when things finally started moving forward at a solid pace.

How do you feel like the project is going so far? Is it about as challenging as you thought it would be or is it a bit more complicated that you first thought?

If it wasn’t challenging, it wouldn’t be a game I’d want to work on. Almost nothing goes the way I had hoped, and that’s when I start learning new things.  I love where the game is going!  It’s really starting to feel more and more like an awesome game with every new mechanic or art piece we implement. As for expectations, I expected many challenges, in fact, I encourage them because they will push me to be a better designer.

Last one, if you could expand the project in any way, what would be the first thing you would add?

Cut scenes. Our writers have created an amazing story covering the entirety of the original scope and the player is only getting a small taste of it. I think a few fleshed out cut scenes could really help give the player an understanding of the detailed lore behind the rest of the game.

There you have it, straight from the mouth of our design lead Andy Wegener. Huge thanks to him for taking the time to do this, I know he is working nearly nonstop to get this finished. And thank you for coming back and taking a look at what we are doing.

Cheers,

Robert

Project Atius Update #6 Interview with Zack Bogucki

Once again, welcome back to the Project Atius Development blog. As promised, today I’m going to be talking to our head writer Zack Bogucki. As it turns out, he is also our sound guy so we are going to chat about that as well in this special combo interview.

So let’s start with the sound first, when you were first starting on the sound what was your first vision for the music?

I came in on the project really early, so at the time, we weren’t sure exactly what kind of game it would be apart from “fantasy with RPG elements.” So a lot of my early attempts were very in-your-face high fantasy, lots of melody driven strings and woodwinds. It wasn’t until we started fleshing out the game a bit more that we realized we would need something more ambient and mysterious.

Right, so were there any specific instruments you wanted to use when composing the music?

From the start, I knew I wanted to use a lot of ethnic percussion alongside harps and strings. I envisioned this island of gods to be very earthy, and it needed to tiptoe the line between beautiful and menacing.

Cool, enough about music though. Let’s talk story, can you fill us in on the overall world this game takes place in?

Sure. It all takes places on a mysterious island in the middle of nowhere that was once a thriving home of the gods. It’s where they’d go to be worshipped, receive tributes, that sort of thing, so it’s dotted with altars and elaborate underground temples. But Atius, the god of light, and Tirawa, god of darkness, get into a huge fight that essentially seals the island off from the rest of the world, and traps the gods there. So by the time the player shows up a few thousand years later, it’s very desolate. The gods themselves have gone into hiding in their respective temples and have essentially all gone mad, and Atius and Tirawa are still locked in eternal combat. Of course, starting the game, you know none of this, so it was really interesting to plan out two intertwining stories that drive the game’s past and present.

Let’s talk about the sword, it’s a pretty important part of the story.

Yeah, definitely. It’s the “god-killing sword,” which Atius had forged to rule over the other gods. The player finds it shortly after showing up on the island, and discovers that she can wield it and use it to cast magic. So it’s basically the game’s main weapon, and gives the player the power to fight back against the corrupted gods. Since it also plays a pretty substantial role in the story, we wanted it to be this massive, ornate blade. That way, it seems that much more important, and when they discover massive gates and altars to Atius, the player can easily recognize the similarities. So in a way, we wanted the sword to not only build up the main character in the player’s mind, but also the final boss.

Lastly, were they any major changes you had to make to the story since we got farther along?

There haven’t been so many major changes as there have been a lot of tiny developments and tweaks. Once we decided on the main themes we wanted for the narrative side of our game, it was just a matter of fleshing out that world, as well as ironing out little kinks and holes in the plot. It’s been a very organic development, I think, and the story seemed to kind of grow out of itself.

So there you have it, the sound and story behind Project Atius. Big thanks to Zack for answering my questions. Keep on coming back for updates on project Atius.

Cheers,

Robert

Project Atius Quick Update 2

Welcome to the second Project Atius Quick Update Roundup. In case you missed the last one these quick posts are a round of all the in progress work that’s coming down the pipes during the development of Project Atius.

 

Right off the bat we have several different concepts for Wisdom’s meditation chair. I showed a different version of this in a previous blog post, but here are some later iterations of it.

 

 

Next up we have a wall segment from our resident root and plant expert Melissa Andrews.

This is a real important one, here is the final untextured sword wielded by the protagonist in Project Atius.

Lastly we have Atira, the protagonist herself in all her untextured glory.

So that’s the end of the second Project Atius Quick Update. Stay tuned because we have some really interesting stuff coming up as we continue to work making Project Atius the best it can be. This one managed to slip in before the interview with lead writer Zach Bogucki, so look forward to that in the next few days.

Cheers,

Robert